The present invention relates broadly to trash receptacles and more particularly to a mobile trash container with pivoting handles which provide enhanced control of rolling movement of the container.
With the advent of curbside trash pick-up, home owners have become faced with the problem of carrying trash containers from the house to the curb. Once a task performed by garbage collectors, homeowners contended with often heavy and certainly bulky trash containers, and were thus periodically faced with the task of wrestling the awkward objects into position for collection at curbside. In addition, gardeners and others engaged in yard maintenance often use trash containers to gather lawn clippings and other yard debris. These individuals are also faced with carrying bulky containers around the yard. To this end, wheels were added near the base area of trash containers for rolling the container between necessary locations. Typically, the wheels are spaced a distance away from the lowermost portion of the container so that the container can stand upright on its base when necessary and can be tipped over onto its wheels for rolling movement.
Conventional wheeled trash containers have freely pivoting handles near the upper portion of the container to hold a lid in place when in a vertical position and to allow removal of the lid when pivoted outwardly. Disadvantageously, however, when the container is heavily loaded, the handles are difficult to use for tipping and rolling the container because the load resists tipping of the container and, instead, handles tend to pivot outwardly from the body of the container without tipping the container. Moreover, even with the container tilted for rolling movement, the relatively free pivotability of the handles results in diminished control of the container while being rolled.